Exordium
by Jaded Scorpio
Summary: Kikyou investigates a disturbance in the woods caused by a certain dog eared boy. A take on one of their first encounters. Kikyou, Inuyasha


_Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha. The characters are owned by Rumiko Takahashi and others. No profit is made from this._

**EXORDIUM**

She was collecting herbs when she heard the children screaming from the forest. "Youkai!" She started running.

"Kikyo-sama!"

"Miko-dono!" The three children from the village ran into her at full speed and clung to her clothing.

"We were checking the snares--"

"There was an army of monsters in the forest!" cut in another child.

"They were fighting a white haired boy." Kikyo's face froze for a moment.

"It wasn't a boy," the eldest of the brothers corrected. "It was a youkai too. He had dog ears, like the---"

"Are you all here? Are you all unharmed?" she cut him off smoothly.

"Yes, we are. We ran back as fast as we could. Kikyo-sama, there were so many of them!"

"Don't worry. Alert the headman. Go quickly!"

As they sprinted off again a voice drifted back to her. "That boy wasn't all right though. They pinned him to a tree with a spear."

_So the children saw Inuyasha? _"You couldn't stand for anyone else to try for the jewel, could you? Have they killed you then, reckless beast?"

Her steps were quick but wary. She had a full quiver but no idea of how many she faced, nor how powerful. She moved towards the dark aura that hovered ahead of her in the forest. _The fool, if he hadn't ignored my warnings and left as I told him…. _She stopped herself. If the invading youkai took care of her hanyou problem, why would she mind? It wasn't as though _he _hadn't tried to kill her many times before. She had left him alive all those times out of a sense of mercy, mercy she couldn't afford to have, and he had just come for the jewel again and again.

She didn't have to go far before she found one of them lying dead. It was as if someone had combined a boar and a man into one. It had a face like a pig, with large tusks jutting from it's mouth. It was clad like the human bandits that roamed the area in armor and a soiled loincloth. The torso had been rent apart by something with wicked claws, rather like a certain half-youkai she'd battled. There was a curved sword in a severed hand hanging in a tree some distance away, torn free with brute force.

She moved on, her arrow still knocked and ready. Her sacred purification arrows would burn through these lesser youkai with ease. Her concern was that they traveled in packs and were fond of poisoned weapons.

The brush was trampled and matted with thick dark blood. The bodies of the pigmen lay in heaps. The flesh was eroding already and shortly would be no more than bones. The ground was furrowed with deep gashes. Farther in even the great trees of the forest had been smashed apart in the fight. But she saw that the weapons of those that had fallen here were stained with bright red blood. "Inuyasha."

Flies buzzed ominously in her ear. They had avoided the oozing corpses of the pigmen. She stepped around the tree and saw that the children were not mistaken. A large spear was buried deep in the trunk, the bark stained dark and crawling with flies. The spear was coated in gore, but the shaft had been splintered an arm's length from the point.

_So he had broken away? _She moved closer. The spear hung just above her shoulder. She tried to gauge were it would have struck him. _He is taller than me…._

She snapped to attention. "Stop that." She scanned for the dark aura she had sensed, but there was little now but the traces of _youki_ from the pigmen. She circled around the group looking for survivors, but they seemed to have all fallen to the claws of Inuyasha. "And what of you Inuyasha? Are you here somewhere, under one of these bodies? Your blood is everywhere, splattered on the trees, dyeing their swords and staves. How long could you have fought with that wound?"

She came upon it suddenly, a blood trail, leading away. Just a tiny drop of blood splashed on a leaf and another some distance away gleaming red in the light that filtered through the canopy. _Inuyasha's blood._

She went cautiously. A wounded hanyou was something few would want to grapple with, but it was her duty to remove all threats to the village and the Sacred Jewel. She found a pinpoint of blood every twenty steps or so at first, but then they came thicker and closer together until she no longer had to search for them. He was moving much more slowly now, the blood loss getting to him and poison racing through him with his sprint. He was staggering along with sheer stubbornness.

She raised her eyes and scanned the forest. The ground ahead dipped in a long-dead streambed. She saw a scrap of red and white laying on the brush. There she saw the edge of a long sleeve, and white hair laid out along the ground, gleaming in the sun.

After a long breath, she stepped forward enough to see that it was him, lying crumpled on his left side in the hollow. She raised her bow and pulled the string taut, waiting for him to fly up with inhuman speed. She advanced again. Was he dead? He didn't seem to be breathing, but it was hard to tell with his loose clothing. _And why do I feel this sense of loss? If it wasn't a waste of a good arrow I would just let it fly and be sure._

She stood frozen as she tried to sift through her strange feelings. Dangerous feelings. Ones she could not afford. She was _miko_, her life was spent in the ruthless protection of the _Shikon-no-tama_, keeping it from all that sought it for evil. Allowing herself a human frailty like pity would be all a youkai would need to defeat her. She was a being who needed to be as merciless as those she fought.

Inuyasha wanted the Sacred Jewel to become a full youkai and burn away his human blood. The hand that lay palm up on the bank, where the long sleeve had caught on the branches when he had fallen, that hand certainly looked human to her, except for the nails that curved into wicked claws stained with dark blood. He was like her, his humanity was a weakness, he fit with neither kind and for that reason she hadn't killed him. The realization came to her suddenly, and she almost cried out as it struck her.

She should have left, or let the arrow fly, but she did neither. She advanced slowly towards the boy in red. If somehow he was still alive, he was likely to lash out in self-defense, and she didn't want to get caught with those claws. And yet, she found that she didn't want to startle him and drive him away. "What, you think you are going to treat his wounds? Only to kill him later? You think he would do anything but tear you apart if he could get close enough? Fool! You have never been this illogical before," she berated herself, even as she wondered what it would be like to touch his silvery hair. _Would it feel like dog fur, or would it be silky?_

At that moment, the fingers flexed, and the body shot up in a red blur. She barely was able to keep from releasing the arrow in reflex. He reappeared in her vision, crouched and ready to spring. His lip curled, "Sorry to disappoint you bitch, but I'm not dead yet." His eyes glinted amber, the pupils narrowing into snake-like slits in the dappled sunlight.

She held the bow steady, glad she hadn't let the arrow fly, for at this range she'd be hard pressed to pull another before he could reach her. She could purify him with her bare hands, but he'd tear her to bits before he succumbed. It would take precious seconds more to subdue him, for his human blood would be a buffer between her spiritual energy and his youkai half. His aura had flared now, it swirled in bright scarlet waves, crackling where it collided with her own energy.

"You couldn't let anyone else have it could you?" she said serenely.

"Keh! Those bastards bragged about how easy it would be to snatch the jewel." He flexed gore-clotted claws.

"Still, they got a piece of you." His shirt was soaked with blood from the fist-sized hole in his chest. There were deep slashes in his arms and shoulder. Blood dripped in a steady tattoo onto the dry leaves underneath him.

His face grew savage and dark. "Lucky shot," he snarled roughly.

She wondered what his voice would sound like if he wasn't angry and gruff all the time. And how his boyish face would look without that perpetual scowl.

He scented the wind. "Do you have it on you?"

_Not that I would tell you! _The jewel was back in its shrine, wreathed in the cloying incense they had begun burning since she had spotted the dog-eared boy in the forest. A whiff would render him unconscious, if he was foolish enough to breathe it. But he wasn't so stupid as that.

Kikyou frowned, trying to keep her arm from trembling. He was watching her closely. "Give it to me, and you can walk out of here."

"Never will I forsake my duty!"

"How long can you hold that bowstring back?"

"How long can you fight that poison?" she shot back. He looked slightly taken aback, but masked his face again. "You must have some natural resistance, for most youkai would have been down already. You're shaking. Between the blood loss and poison, you're barely able to keep your feet, aren't you?"

He lunged, "Why you---" which tore into a hoarse cry when her arrow seared over his shoulder, blackening his skin to ash. She fired through his hakama, scoring his knee and sending him down on his back. The _kenatsu_ of his claws scored her face, but the force behind it had been cleansed, and it was little more than a violent wind. She bent her bow again with aching arms and pinned his trailing sleeves to the ground. He trashed wildly with screams of frustration and rage, then went still when he realized the futility of it. She took aim at his heart.

"What are you waiting for? Stop toying with me bitch and finish it!" He stared her in the eye, awaiting death with resigned defiance.

Kikyou met his eyes for a long moment. Then she slowly relaxed the bow and slid the arrow back into her quiver.

"Hey!" he bellowed after her, as she walked away. "Hey!"


End file.
